Finalist: San Antonio Express-News, by Bob Owen, Jerry Lara and Lisa Krantz

Rafael Hernandez, director of Angeles del Desierto stands over the body of an undocumented immigrant, after placing a cross he made of broken twigs. Hernandez came across the body while searching on a ranch just outside Falfurrias, Tx., on Wednesday Jan. 29, 2014. The death witnessed by a handful in South Texas was a precursor to the record number of Central American immigrants that were apprehended in 2014. (Bob Owen/San Antonio Express News)

"Using an inflatable raft, coyotes, or smugglers, carry immigrants across by the international bridge on the Rio Grande in Roma, Tx., on June 24, 2014. According to law enforcement officials, higher risk smuggling operations have moved into Starr County in order to avoid the saturated border in Hidalgo, County. (Jerry Lara/San Antonio Express-News)

An infant cries as U.S. Border Patrol agents process a group of immigrants in Granjeno, Tx., on June 25, 2014. The city is just north of El Rincon del Diablo, the Devil's Corner, a hotbed of illegal border crossing on the Rio Grande by juvenile and mothers with children immigrants from Central America. (Jerry Lara/San Antonio Express-News)

A young girl peers out a bus window waiting with other children to be taken to a shelter in San Pedro Sula, Honduras. Thirteen busses full of children and their families arrived overnight, at the Honduras Family and Children Shelter Center in San Pedro Sula carrying citizens of Honduras that were apprehended and deported from various cities in Mexico. Wednesday, June 25, 2014. (Bob Owen/San Antonio Express-News)

Guatemalan Goverment workers, in blue vests, escort mothers with their children from the plane after being deported from the U.S. Three planes, two full of adults and a third full of adults including 7 mothers and 13 children, arrived at the Guatemala Air Force side of La Aurora Airport in Guatemala City, Guatemala, on Tuesday, July 22, 2014. (Bob Owen/San Antonio Express-News)

Jose Luis Ramos Castillo, 16, talks with his grandmother Maria de Jesus Rodriguez, 83, through the kitchen window, on Monday, June 30, 2014, as she prepares a pot of frijoles for their family. Castillo had planned to leave for the U.S. the day before with a friend, but the friend backed out because he didn't have the money he wanted to take. The two teens from La Libertad, Honduras are planning another departure date. Castillo hadn't told his grandmother that he planned to leave. (Bob Owen/San Antonio Express-News)

Captain Carlos Madrid of the Honduras Military Police checks the identification papers of a Honduran woman traveling with her two children to Guatemala, near the border town of Corinto, Honduras, on Friday, June 27, 2014. One child was born in Honduras and the other was born in Guatemala, and they were allowed to pass. (Bob Owen/San Antonio Express-News)

A woman from an evangelical womans group in El Salvador looks across the Suchiate River from the Guatemala side looking for a 'sister' from her group, on the Mexican side, as immigrants and commerce crosses the Suchiate River which is the border between Guatemala and Mexico, in Tecum Uman, Guatemala on Wednesday, July 30, 2014. Ironically, the immigrants would cross a final river - the Rio Grande on the Mexican-Texas border - before crossing into the United States. (Bob Owen/San Antonio Express-News)

Immigrants ride the train known as 'la bestia' as it leaves Arriaga, Mexico, at 1:30AM. Friday, Aug. 1, 2014. The train system running north from the Guatemala-Mexico border transports thousands of Central American immigrants through Mexico. Immigrants have been killed or have lost limbs after falling off the top of trains. (Bob Owen/San Antonio Express-News)

Allan Oliva, 24, carries his brother Marco Oliva, 21, who had his legs amputated after trying to jump on a train heading north through Mexico earlier this year. They live with 11 other family members in a house in Barrio Colonia Divanna dominated by the gang '18', in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, on Friday, July 4, 2014. Oliva's father was killed by gang members in 1995, when he was 2 yrs old. Many young Honduran immigrants leave their country to escape the increasing violence. (Bob Owen/San Antonio Express-News)

Gloria Nunez, 49, changes the diapers for her injured son Allan Cruz, 22, on Monday, June 30, 2014. Cruz was hit by a vehicle in Celaya, Mexico, while heading to Houston, to look for work back in 2011. The family of six live in a one room apartment in Barrio El Pedregalito in Tegucigalpa, Honduras. Nunez's kitchen consists of a portable gas burning-one-pot stove, at left. (Bob Owen/San Antonio Express-News)

"Vladimir Rodriguez, 25, watches as a northbound train while waiting along the tracks in Saltillo, Mexico, Thursday, August 14, 2014. When asked why he didn't try to board it, he said, 'that one's going to Nuevo Laredo, too many problems with organize crime and I don't have the money to pay the bribes'. He was waiting on the train to Piedras Negras, on the border with Eagle Pass, Tx. (Jerry Lara/San Antonio Express-News)

Family members and friends carry the casket and walk in a funeral procession of a 24 year old man shot four times by gang members for not completing a task he was asked to do, in the small colonial town of Valle de Angeles, Honduras, just outside Tegucigalpa. Saturday, July 5, 2014. Tens-of-thousands of Central Americans - many from Honduras - fleeing the increasing violence crossed into the United States in 2014. (Bob Owen/San Antonio Express-News)

On Saturday, July 26, 2014, Sipriana Jurares Dias, left, 43, sits with Francisco Ramos, her husband and father of their son Gilberto Ramos, 15, who lost his life on the journey to find work in the U.S. in order to send money to pay for his mother's medicine. Ramos died in the brush after crossing into South Texas. Their home is in San Jose Las Flores, a small village in the Cuchumatanes Mountains in Guatemala. (Bob Owen/San Antonio Express-News)

Central American immigrants including Maria Bertalina Ramirez, 21, left, of Honduras, with her son, Jose Joel, 1, are guided by Texas Game Wardens and a U.S. Border Patrol agent after they crossed the Rio Grande River by boat into the United States on Wednesday, August 13, 2014. The group of 14 was questioned and taken in vans to be processed. (Lisa Krantz/San Antonio Express-News)

U.S. Border Patrol agents question a group of adult and minor immigrants near Anzalduas Park, southwest of McAllen, Texas, Wednesday, June 11, 2014. A wave of Central American adults with children and unaccompanied minors has overwhelmed U.S. Immigration and Customs detention centers. Immigration officials release some of them on their own recognizance after undergoing processing. (Jerry Lara/San Antonio Express-News)

KC Massey, right, takes a drag on a cigarette as he sits with land owner Rusty Monsees Jr. Monsees asked the militia group called Camp Lone Star, to set up camp on his property along the Rio Grande River in Brownsville, TX. on Wednesday, September 10, 2014. Armed militias patrolled the border in South Texas searching for immigrants crossing the Rio Grande. Several militia members were later arrested on gun charges and outstanding warrants. (Bob Owen/San Antonio Express-News)

A Custom and Border Patrol officer walks with an undocumented immigrant from Guatemala who was found hiding in the tall grass just south of the border wall near Weslaco, Tx., on Thursday, Jan. 16, 2014. The immigrant voluntarily with the officer and is not cuffed. (Bob Owen/San Antonio Express-News)

With a mixture of joy, laughter, tears and befuddlement, Lisvette Sanches Rodriguez, center, of El Salvador, comforts a grateful Vina Lopez, of Guatemala, with her two year old son, after a group of 11 immigrants from Central America were given food and clothing by members of the Interfaith Welcome Coalition, following their release from the Karnes County Residential Center on Thursday, Dec. 18, 2014. The Interfaith Welcome Coalition also found housing for them so they didn't have to spend the night at the San Antonio bus station where they were dropped off without food or money by the Residential Center. At right is Marilin Lopez Figueroa, 8, and at left is Sindy Cotoc Otzoy de Siguin and her 4 year old daughter Heidy. (Bob Owen/San Antonio Express-News)